1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to methods and systems for position-aware freeform printing. This invention also relates to methods and systems for position-aware freeform printing, in which digital content is captured and printed by manually operating a printing device over the surface of a target image space of a target medium in a position-sensed coordinate system.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, people use three modes to print information: 1) writing the information out manually with a writing instrument; 2) printing the information onto a label; or 3) printing the information on a piece of paper fed through a traditional printer. These modes have limitations. First, manually transcribing information can be slow, error prone. For example, writing an email address, product reference number or a Web Page address is error prone since each character is significant. Moreover, manual transcription is not always suitable for all kinds of information. For example official forms, special characters, and/or graphical information like logos or pictures are difficult to manually transcribe. Printing information onto a label can present formatting problems. Generally, labels are of a predetermined size and may require trimming or adjustment of the label in order to fit the relevant information into a predetermined area on the label. Furthermore, extra work is required to affix the label. Third, conventional printers often seem inappropriate and inefficient when printing out small bits of information onto small portions of a page. In addition, conventional printers are limited to printing only onto a surface that can be fed into the printer. Also, the particular types of surface that the conventional printer can print onto is also limited. In particular, surfaces cannot easily be fed into a printer, such as, an agenda, a box, a Post-It(copyright) style paper, while other surfaces cannot be fed into a printer at all.
Conventional printers cannot distinguish a preexisting image or preexisting markings on a piece of paper that is fed into the printer. Thus, conventional printers will non-discriminately print over preexisting images. Therefore, it is difficult for a printer to direct new print information into blank areas on a surface having preexisting information. For example, adding an item to a preprinted agenda or preprinted to do list is difficult using conventional printers.
Numerous small hand held printers have been developed to print textual data information, such as the address on an envelope. These conventional hand held printers use optical and mechanical methods for controlling printing at a location. The conventional mechanical hand held printers integrate mechanical sensors to print the data information as the user manually moves the printer over a surface. However, these conventional mechanical hand held printers suffer from numerous disadvantages. In some mechanical hand held printers, rollers limit the movement of the printer to a direction perpendicular to the print head by friction that is applied against the surface of the print media. In addition, the mechanical sensors used in these conventional mechanical hand-held printers are not always accurate on the sliding surfaces.
Conventional free-hand image scanning use optical sensors like the optical sensor, used in the Microsoft Intellimouse(copyright) and described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,578,813. Although optical sensors are better suited for tracking the position of the printer, they tend to be complicated and very sensitive to dust or paper handling.
Also these conventional mechanical and optical sensing techniques are limited to providing an absolute position of the printer, relative to a starting point of the print head. Therefore, if a user lifts the printer from the media it is printing on, the position of the printer is misaligned.
Other conventional hand held printers having optical sensors, such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,927,872, use optical sensors for tracking positions of the hand held printer relative to the surface of a print medium during the printing process. In these conventional hand held printers the print head can move in two dimensions and print bitmaps that are bigger than the print head width. Although, these conventional hand held printers can move in two dimensions, only relative positioning is supported. Thus, once the conventional hand held printers are lifted from the printing surface, the position of the print head relative to the last print position is disrupted.
Conventional hand held printers are limited in that data information is printed in a single pass, assuming that the print head is wide enough to print the desired data information. In other conventional hand held printers such as the conventional hand held printer in U.S. Pat. No. 5,988,900, a hand held sweep electronic printer is provided with compensation for non-linear movement. However, any slight augmentation of the print head width disrupts the alignment positioning of the hand held printer.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,793, describes a hand held printer having a small LCD screen that displays the print length of the data information. This printer scales the data information according to a specified value. If the data information is textual, the printer can reformat the original content by splitting it among several lines and reducing the font size. If necessary, a user can increase or decrease the display length value. In other modes, the user can also drag the hand held printer without printing to view what data information, such as text is to be printed. Although a user can increase or decrease the display length, it is still not possible for the user to specify the dimensions of the printed area.
Various image processing techniques that reformat data information to fit within a new area are applied in imaging software like Photoshop(copyright) and Adobe Illustrator(copyright) and the Casio Copy Pen(copyright). However, it is not possible to warp text along an arbitrary path using these conventional techniques.
Systems and methods according to this invention provide for position-aware freeform printing. The systems and methods according to this invention provide for printing ad-hoc, informal, situation specific data information onto the surface of a print media including surfaces that cannot be fed into a conventional paper fed printer.
One aspect of the invention is to provide a method for position-aware freeform printing that includes selecting and capturing an image from a source image space with a printing device. A target image space is defined on the target surface using the freeform printer in a non-printing mode. The content of the image is then rendered into the target image space of a target medium by moving the printer in a freeform manner. For example, a freeform manner is a motion that involves moving the printing device with respect to the printable surface. Further, the motion the user takes in moving the printing device is not constrained to a particular location or to a particular orientation of the printing device to the printable surface.
Various embodiments according to this invention provide a system for position-aware freeform printing that includes a source medium with a source image space and a target medium with a target image space. A printing device selects an image from the source image space of the source medium and specifies a target image space on a target medium and transfers a processed image to the target image space. A controller captures the image selected by the printing device and stores the image in a memory. The image selected by the printing device is processed and a processed image is output. The controller formats the processed image to fit into the target image space by controlling the rendering of the processed image onto the target medium based on position information from a position sensing device when the printing device is moved over the target image space in a freeform direction. For example, a back and forth rubbing or brush-like motion may be used. The controller predicts a freeform direction that the print head will travel by detecting the motion previously traveled and adjusting the print image to compensate for the predicted freeform direction.
In various other exemplary embodiments according to this invention, the captured print image may be processed so that it can be pasted within a print target area. Processing may include, but is not limited to aggregation, segmentation, and transformation of the print image.
The systems and methods according to this invention provide for position-aware freeform printing, in which digital data information, such as an image or text, is printed by operating a printing device over the surface of a target area image space that is placed in a position-sensed coordinate system, or position sensing device. In particular, digital content is printed by operating a printing device, such as, a position-aware freeform printing hand held printer or any other known or later developed type of printing device, over output material situated in the position-sensed coordinate system. The methods and systems for position-aware freeform printing are designed to print ad-hoc, informal, situation-specific data information, such as, phone numbers, reference numbers, URL""s, and any other type of data information, onto a target medium. For example, Post-It(copyright) style paper, notebooks, whiteboard, or any other target medium can be printed on in accordance with the systems and methods according to this invention. In another exemplary embodiment according to this invention, the position-aware freeform printing system senses the location of the print head of the printing device. For example, a touch screen, a touch pad, a whiteboard position sensor or any other method of verifying position information may be used in the practice of this invention.
Interfaces for applying emphasis in print, and for Z-axis printing or graphic layering so that the freeform printing occurs in a selected Z-axis of stored print images, and registration marking for data information capture, metadata management, and to provide real-time image processing are also provided by this invention.